AMD Athlon 64 heatsink roundup

Very few people have an AMD Athlon 64, but recently AMD introduced the A64 3000+ for a reasonable price. I couldn't resist and bought me one. Time to put some custom HSF units under some fresh A64 load!

Introduction

A couple of months ago AMD introduced the Athlon 64. Really powerful, but very expensive.But, a moth ago, they introduced a new version of it, the Athlon 64 3000+. This CPU actually is a 3200+, nut has only half the L2 cache size, namely 512 KB instead of the original 1024 KB. As the cache is a very expensive part of the CPU, and this one has less of it, the price dropped to 240 € in little Belgium.

I couldn't resist and bought be one.

Even at stock speeds this CPU has a great performance. But great performance, and a silent computer mostly don't go together.... So today I’ll be testing some cooling solutions for the Athlon 64. Starting from the simplest cooling solution, the boxed cooler, and ending with a more advanced and complete watercooling setup.